There has been no resolution to the Deebo Samuel contract situation, as the star wide receiver is discernibly displeased with the negotiations to this point. Samuel changed his profile picture on Instagram and removed images of himself in a 49ers uniform, inviting speculation that he’s unhappy.
He also liked a post from one of his close friends who suggested that Samuel was asking for $25 million a year.
NBC Sports’ Matt Maiocco joined KNBR on Thursday attempting to wrap his head around the situation. He believes Samuel hasn’t interpreted the circumstances correctly.
“I get the sense that Deebo is kind of overreacting here,” Maiocco said. “I feel like the 49ers on their side are kind of like, ‘What’s going on here? What’s happening?’ Deebo, I’m not sure what info he’s getting or has gotten or what set him off that he did the very current form of acrimony, which is going to social media and the passive aggressive removing of anything that connect’s a person to their employer.”
In his view, the 49ers aren’t all that worried about getting an agreement on a deal. Maiocco believes there’s always been a fairly clear cut price point that will work for both sides just under the likes of the top-tier, established receivers in Davante Adams, Tyreek Hill and Deandre Hopkins.
Maiocco said he really doesn’t understand what bothered Samuel to going passive aggressive on social media and is fairly confident that a deal will get done.
“So 1 to 10, just because there is that little sliver of a question about what is happening behind the scenes is 8 or 9 that he’s back with the 49ers,” Maiocco said. “The only reason I don’t say 10 is because you just never know what could happen…
“But [the 49ers] don’t see a whole lot of obstacles standing in the way of getting that [deal] done.”
Maiocco said on Papa and Lund on Wednesday that he expects the 49ers to end up making him either the second or third highest-paid receiver in the league, but that he doesn’t get the sense there have been discussions yet.
“When they do sit down, the 49ers will probably offer a deal, top-five wide receivers in the league,” Maiocco said. “His agent will probably come back with something that makes him the highest-paid wide receiver in the league and ultimately, I think they’ll agree on something that’s in the two or three range.”
There is still the question of when a deal would actually get done. Maiocco said the one x-factor here, which he gleaned from the 49ers’ Pro Day in Santa Clara on Wednesday, is that “here’s really no sense of exactly where Deebo’s mind is.”
Listen to the full interview below. You can listen to every KNBR interview on our podcast page at knbr.com/podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Catch Murph and Mac weekdays from 6 a.m. – 6 p.m. on KNBR 104.5 / 680 and streaming live on KNBR.com.